The present invention relates to a surgical system and, more particularly, to a surgical system and method for spinal implant procedures, such as cervical or lumbar discectomy.
Instability of the human spine often calls for the implantation of spinal plates. In the cervical spine, instability may be caused by trauma or deformities, such as curves of the spine, or instability associated with corpectomy for disc disease or with reconstructive surgeries for, as an example, tumors of the cervical spine. A spinal plate, typically used in conjunction with a disc or vertebral prosthesis or a spinal cage/spacer, is used to provide stability between adjacent vertebrae, as well as to maintain a desired rigid relationship between the adjacent vertebrae. Present spinal plates may have a protruding profile when implanted on the spine. For example, a cervical plate often protrudes and causes discomfort for patients. Patients may experience difficulty swallowing, and may feel pressure at their throat. Similarly, protruding plates in the lumbar spine may affect the vascular anatomy in the lower lumbar area. Thus, as an alternative in order to lessen the protrusion of spinal plates, some plates have been designed to be less robust. Plates have been made to be thinner, and therefore less strong, in favor of a lower profile.
Generally, implantation of spinal plates has not been widely performed using computer-assisted surgery systems. The functions of a computer-assisted surgery (CAS) system may include pre-operative planning of a procedure, presenting pre-operative diagnostic information and images in useful formats, presenting status information about a procedure as it takes place, and enhancing performance.
Robotic systems are often used in applications that require a high degree of accuracy and/or precision, such as surgical procedures or other complex tasks. Such systems may include various types of robots, such as autonomous, teleoperated, and interactive. For some types of surgery, such as joint replacement surgery, interactive systems are preferred because such systems enable a surgeon to maintain direct, hands-on control of the surgical procedure while still achieving a high degree of accuracy and/or precision. For example, in knee replacement surgery, a surgeon can use an interactive, haptically guided robotic arm in a passive manner to sculpt bone to receive a joint implant, such as a knee implant. To sculpt bone, the surgeon manually grasps and manipulates the robotic arm to move a cutting tool (such as a burr) that is coupled to the robotic arm to cut a pocket in the bone. As long as the surgeon maintains a tip of the burr within a predefined virtual cutting boundary defined, for example, by a haptic object, the robotic arm moves freely with low friction and low inertia such that the surgeon perceives the robotic arm as weightless and can move the robotic arm as desired. If the surgeon attempts to move the tip of the burr to cut outside the virtual cutting boundary, however, the robotic arm provides haptic (or other force) feedback that prevents or inhibits the surgeon from moving the tip of the burr beyond the virtual cutting boundary. In this manner, the robotic arm enables highly accurate, repeatable bone cuts.